Monroe Monitor » Mary Ann Sadowskihttp://www.monroemonitor.com
The voice of The Sky Valley since 1899Tue, 31 Mar 2015 19:52:00 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.3Notes from the Valleyhttp://www.monroemonitor.com/2013/07/16/notes-from-the-valley-3/
http://www.monroemonitor.com/2013/07/16/notes-from-the-valley-3/#commentsTue, 16 Jul 2013 19:30:33 +0000http://www.monroemonitor.com/?p=4159On Thursday, Senator Kirk Pearson joined Gold Bar city volunteers to dedicate the new Gold Bar city sign. This sign was designed and installed by local citizens. Sign materials were donated by Gold Bar businesses Artic Refrigeration and Western States Band Mill. The city paid for the carving of the sign and structural fabrication supplies. [...]

Gold Bar volunteers who worked on the installation of a new Gold Bar city sign are, left-to-right, back row: Al White, Pat Toman, Virgil Looney, Ray Coleman, Harry Brevig, and Jay Prueher. Left to right in the front row are Senator Kirk Pearson and volunteer Dick King.Photo courtesy of the city of Gold Bar

On Thursday, Senator Kirk Pearson joined Gold Bar city volunteers to dedicate the new Gold Bar city sign. This sign was designed and installed by local citizens. Sign materials were donated by Gold Bar businesses Artic Refrigeration and Western States Band Mill. The city paid for the carving of the sign and structural fabrication supplies.

The Lee Gerry Memorial Sidewalk was also dedicated Thursday in Gold Bar, in accordance with a city ordinance stating that, since Gerry had worked since 2006 to bring a sidewalk to the road between 17th Street and the Gold Bar Family Grocer, and that it was a significant improvement to public safety, the sidewalk should be named for him.

From Judy Wood in Sultan:

A person we know who is the fussiest person within recent memory said that that the senior center Pancake Breakfast last Saturday was the best pancake breakfast he has ever attended.

We have a neighbor who has a story to tell, and since she is 92 I decided that it was time to listen. Her name is Mary Ann Sadowski, known in her earlier years as Mary Ann Brown.

Picture a young woman working at a shoe factory in St. Louis. She is listening to the radio where they are saying that women are needed in the military to help with the cause.

That girl was Mary Ann. She was living with her brother at the time and he didn’t object to her joining. He himself had joined. So off to the Navy recruiter she went. She wasn’t real fond of the Navy because of all that ocean water; she was kind of scared of that. But the country needed her so she decided to get a little brave and sign up anyway.

When she arrived at the Navy recruitment center, she found that the Marines had just opened a recruitment office that very day. She signed with the Marines on March 4, 1943. According to her memory, she didn’t sign up for a specific amount of time, but for the duration. Within a week or so after signing, Mary Ann was off to boot camp at Hunter College in New York City.

The drill instructor was a man. She said that mostly he had them run then march and march and march.

They also had to stand inspections, learn how to make beds and keep house Marine Corps style. It was the marching that gave some people the most trouble, especially one young lady who couldn’t tell her left from her right and constantly found herself going in the wrong direction. The drill instructor must have had an infinite amount of patience because every time he would find his young recruit going in the wrong direction, he’d turn his head towards the river so that nobody could hear him, and you could see that the river was getting quite a talking to. Then he would turn towards his recruits and quietly say, “Okay ladies, let us try it again.”

The young lady eventually had to leave the Corps.

From New York, Mary Ann was sent to Indiana University to learn Naval store keeping. That took about six weeks. Then she was transferred to Cherry Point, N.C.

She felt that she played an important part in the war effort as she was taking a spot from a man so that he’d be free to fight the enemy, even though it gave her a funny feeling in her stomach every time she thought about it.

She never regretted her decision to join the Marines and thoroughly enjoyed her time in the Corps. She resigned in September of 1945, at the end of the duration, as she promised. She was a sergeant by that time.

After leaving the Corps and getting her job back at the shoe factory, she met and married a Marine who made a career in the Corps.

I wrote this story because of what I feel was great courage. She went and joined the military by herself when that definitely was not the path taken by most women of that day.